This weekend I went to the bicycle store with my husband. It is not something I am into but we wanted to spend time together so we all went. While there, my daughter was enjoying touching everything, exploring her environment, and riding the Kettler bikes. While there, I noticed a couple enter the store with a little boy. I could only assume they were a couple but who knows? They could have been sisters.
Needless to say, they were shopping for a bike for a 3-year old boy who was with them. He was very interested in the tricycles and the bikes with the training wheels but just like my daughter, seemed very drawn to the pink bikes in the store – all of them. Even when the two kept steering him to the electric blue tricycle or the sporting royal blue bike with lasers (kidding), the little boy seemed to have a preference for the dainty, flowery pink ones. As the two kept defending the boy’s choice of color, I couldn’t help but wonder why we as a society cannot tolerate a boy on pink- what is so wrong with that?
Stereotypes drive me nuts! Girls need to become secretaries and nurses and boys can … well, do anything they want. Girls need to wear pink and boys wear blue. Heaven forbid our society tolerate a boy in pink. What’s so wrong with pink I ask you? What is so wrong with breaking the mold and the stereotypes that come with gender. From the day of birth in the hospital, there are pink and blue items. I am not sure why- is it so people can ID a girl from a boy? What is the reason for the color stereotypes? They just get worse as we grow up. After all, a girl cannot stay out too late but boys can run amuck in their teenage years. And what about the stereotypes kids face in school? They are ruthless.
If my assumption was correct about these two adults in the store and if they were truly together, I think they should be proud of their “son” and should buy him the pink bike. He may get picked on – sure, but isn’t overcoming ridicule and gender stereotypes a very important lesson and step in life – one that may be better if it comes sooner than later? I do not see anything wrong with blue for girls and pink for boys and in so much as I can help it, hope to do my part in breaking gender stereotypes.
